Thursday, March 23, 2017

Apologies for a Eurovision post as early as March, but the events of the last couple of days have been truly extraordinary. First of all, the Ukrainian authorities announced that the Russian entrant wouldn't be allowed into the country to compete in this year's contest (taking place in Kiev), because she performed in Crimea without their permission. Russia of course now regards Crimea as an integral part of its own territory, so whatever you may think of that state of affairs, it would have been totally unrealistic to expect a Russian citizen to apply for Ukrainian permission before going there.

I suggested on Twitter yesterday that the EBU couldn't possibly accept a Ukrainian veto on who can compete for Russia, and that if there was no U-turn they would have to think about the unprecedented step of allowing Julia Samoilova to compete via a live feed. After a little indecision, the EBU came to precisely that conclusion today. But now the Ukrainians are apparently attempting to veto even that solution, and are saying that it would somehow be a breach of Ukrainian law to broadcast the Russian song if it is performed under these circumstances.

There is a very clear precedent covering this scenario. In 2005, Lebanon seemed set to join the contest, and selected a beautiful (if a tad old-fashioned) entry in French called Quand tout s'enfuit. I was really disappointed when they were forced to withdraw, but the logic was impossible to argue with - Lebanese law forbade the broadcast of the Israeli entry, and that would have made a mockery of the whole contest. Exactly the same principle applies here. It's probably too late to strip Ukraine of their hosting rights, but if they refuse to broadcast the properly-selected Russian entry, they shouldn't be allowed to participate in their own contest. If they don't back down and they aren't banned, the integrity of the competition (stop laughing at the back) will be fatally undermined.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Just a quick note to let you know that I have a new article at the TalkRadio website about Theresa May's outrageous bid to overturn the long-standing British government policy that Scotland can only remain in the UK by democratic consent. You can read the article HERE.

As you may have seen, Sky News made an exasperating attempt last night to distort the referendum debate with a wildly unreliable online "poll", conducted by themselves and using their own paying customers as respondents, which purported to show that Theresa May is significantly more popular in Scotland than Nicola Sturgeon - a finding that is light-years out of line with recent properly-conducted polls from firms affiliated to the British Polling Council.

The numbers were so patently absurd that I didn't think they even warranted the effort of a blogpost, although I did post a tweet pointing out that it was a junk poll and should be disregarded. That prompted a reaction this morning from Harry Carr, head of "Sky Data", who insisted that it was a nationally representative poll. He also produced datasets which showed that some weighting had been done - but there was no obvious sign of many of the political weightings that are standard in Scottish online polls, such as by recalled indyref vote, recalled EU ref vote, or recalled Holyrood vote.

As the poll bears all the hallmarks of having far too many Leave voters in the sample, I asked Harry a simple question - had he weighted by EU ref vote? His answer : No. He had weighted by recalled 2015 general election vote, but not by EU ref vote. I strongly suspect that also means he didn't bother weighting by recalled Holyrood vote or by recalled indyref vote.

There's your explanation for the poll's nonsense results right there. A telephone or face-to-face poll can possibly get away without doing proper political weighting, and just relying on demographic weighting. But an online poll - no chance. Online polls are different because you know in advance that you're drawing from an unrepresentative pool of potential respondents - Sky customers, for example, may well have political leanings that are different from non-Sky customers, and you have to carefully weight to correct for that. I literally can't think of a single British Polling Council firm that would have attempted to conduct an online poll in the way that Harry has done. It also looks like he didn't bother weighting by country of birth - a failing that he has in common with only BMG.

I stand by my original assessment - junk poll, ignore.

By the way - here's a challenge for Harry. Conduct a Scottish voting intention poll, and publish it even if it puts the Tories in the lead. Then try to keep a straight face when you defend your methodology. Go on, I dare you.

Monday, March 20, 2017

The latest desperate tactic of unionist politicians and journalists is to attempt to deligitimise the Greens' forthcoming vote in favour of an independence referendum by suggesting that it is somehow a betrayal of their own Holyrood manifesto from last year. A frequently-heard claim is that the manifesto committed the party to only back a referendum if "one million" signatures had been collected demanding one. That is completely and utterly untrue. For one thing, you will search that manifesto in vain for the figure "one million", because it's not mentioned anywhere. There isn't even a commitment that ANY signatures at all have to be collected - all that is said is that the Greens' "preferred way" of triggering a referendum is by an "appropriate number" of people signing a petition. The phrase "preferred way" was an implicit acknowledgement that the Greens were going to continue to be a minority party within a parliament elected by proportional representation, and that holding a referendum would therefore require listening to the "preferred ways" of other parties, and then reaching an agreement on which one would be adopted. Absolutely nothing in the manifesto precludes the Greens from backing an option that is not their own first preference.

As far as the one million figure is concerned, it's true that Patrick Harvie was asked what an "appropriate number" might be, and one million is what he came up with. But the unionists can't have it both ways - if they're going to treat a manifesto like a sacred text and beat a party over the head with it, they actually do have to look at the words that are contained within it, and not at extraneous material. There is no definition provided in the manifesto for the phrase "appropriate number" - it could be a million signatures, it could be twelve. It could certainly be a low enough figure to be achieved comfortably within an afternoon or two.

As I understand it, the Greens' own explanation of their current stance rests primarily on the part of the manifesto that stated in general terms that if a referendum is to happen, it must come about by "the will of the people". The will of the Scottish people as expressed in the referendum last June is to remain within the European Union, which is no longer compatible with their earlier desire to remain within the United Kingdom. A second independence referendum is therefore the only way of resolving the incompatibility, and determining what the will of the people actually is when faced with a straight choice between the UK and the EU. That logic looks watertight to me.

I think most of us would agree that it would have been better if the Green manifesto had used stronger wording, and had explicitly referred to the possibility of an early referendum being triggered by Brexit. Nevertheless, the wording was more than adequate, for the following reasons -

* It acknowledged the prospect of a second independence referendum, and committed the Greens to campaigning for a Yes vote when it takes place.* It did not exclude the possibility of a referendum taking place within the 2016-21 parliament.* It imposed no specific pre-conditions on Green support for a referendum within the 2016-21 parliament.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Today brings word of the first full-scale Scottish poll to be wholly conducted since Nicola Sturgeon fired the starting-gun for a second independence referendum. It's a Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times, and although the datasets have yet to appear, it looks as if the question about the timing of the referendum used identical wording to the last Panelbase poll for the same client a few weeks ago. As I noted at the time, that wording is extremely poor. Respondents are asked to choose between a referendum in "the next year or two", a referendum "in about two years", or no referendum "in the next few years". The latter timescale implies a period of longer than two years, which means that people who want a referendum in three years' time (2020 has, after all, been mentioned as a possible compromise date) do not have an option that represents their views - they're effectively forced to choose an option they don't really believe in. However, within those inadequate confines, there is a roughly even split between those who say they want a referendum within two years, and those who say they don't want one within the next few years - exactly as there was in the last poll.

The combined support for the two 'within two years' options is 50%, while support for 'not within the next few years' is 51%. The apparent incompatibilty of those numbers is caused by the effect of rounding. That suggests support for an early referendum on the raw numbers is fractionally below 50%, perhaps similar to the 49.4% recorded in the last poll - but that would, of course, be well within the standard 3% margin of error, meaning it's impossible to know whether the true figure is a little above 50%, or a little below.

In spite of the continuation of the basic 50/50 split, this isn't a no change poll by any means - there has been considerable movement within the half of the sample that wants an early referendum, with a sharp 5% increase in support for the 'hardline' option of a referendum "in the next year or two" while Brexit negotiations are still ongoing. That figure now stands at 32%. There has been a corresponding 5% drop in support (to 18%) for the more 'moderate' option of a referendum "in about two years", after negotiations have been completed. Ironically, the latter option is closest to Nicola Sturgeon's own stated plans, so almost a third of the population actually feel that she is not moving quite fast enough. You probably won't hear about that on the mainstream media, though.

I don't pay the Murdoch Levy, so in the absence of the Panelbase datasets I'm not sure whether respondents were also asked whether Theresa May should grant a Section 30 order allowing the referendum to take place on the same basis as the 2014 vote. However, there is a Britain-wide ComRes poll out today which asked whether respondents agreed or disagreed with the following statement -

Theresa May should insist that any second Scottish referendum on independence takes place only once Britain has completed the process of leaving the EU.

The results among the Scottish subsample (excluding Don't Knows) were...

Agree : 48%Disagree : 52%

Subsample results cannot be regarded as reliable, of course, but as it happens those numbers are bang in line with the most recent full-scale Scottish YouGov poll (conducted mostly before Nicola Sturgeon's referendum announcement), which found that 52% of the public think the London government should agree to a referendum if Sturgeon asks for one.

Panelbase also asked a voting intention question on independence itself...

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 44% (-2)No 56% (+2)

Some unionists are beside themselves with excitement at that result, taking it as proof that the YouGov poll showing Yes 43%, No 57% wasn't such an outlier after all. Well...up to a point, Lord Copper. It's true that we now have a first non-YouGov poll since autumn 2014 to show the Yes vote slightly lower than the 45% actually achieved in Indyref 1. It's also true that YouGov no longer looks like an extreme outlier, but it is still very much at the No-friendly far end of the spectrum. YouGov's inexplicable refusal to include 16 and 17 year olds in their sample may in itself explain the difference between their findings and Panelbase's.

As far as Panelbase are concerned, there were signs even before today's poll that they might be starting to slot into the No-friendly zone - the previous poll from the firm had Yes stuck on 46%, even though polls from Ipsos-Mori and BMG at around the same time showed Yes surging to 48-50%.

Of the last seven polls conducted by all firms, three (two from BMG and one from Ipsos-Mori) have shown an unusually high Yes vote, two (one from Panelbase and one from Survation) have shown a figure within the familiar range of recent times, and two (one from YouGov and today's from Panelbase) have shown an unusually low Yes vote. It would be totally irrational to conclude on the basis of that evidence that there has definitely been a drop in the Yes vote - the opposite may have happened, or there may well have been no change at all.

* * *

SCOT GOES POP POLL OF POLLS

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 46.4% (-0.4)No 53.6% (+0.4)

(The Poll of Polls is based on a rolling average of the most recent poll from each firm that has reported at least once within the last three months. The firms included in the current sample are Panelbase, BMG, Ipsos-Mori, YouGov and Survation.)